1901.] Salmon Fisheries in Ireland. 63 traffic is not of infinite importance to these hitherto neglected districts.
I feel that though I have not at all adequately treated my subject, I need not labour the point of the economic value to Ireland of the Tourist Movement. We, who are interested in it, do not claim that it is a panacea for all the ills that Ireland is supposed to labour under, but we do claim, if it is true that the benefactor of his country is he who makes two blades of grass to grow where one grew before, that we, whose endeavour it is to bring over here and properly cater for the Tourists, are in our own way acting up to that beneficence, and that while in no sense claiming the name of philanthropists, we are showing that there is an asset, as yet imperfectly recognized, which tends towards the wealth of the country and that in advertising that asset we are practically producing the proverbial two blades of grass.
I have purposely omitted dealing with the advantage from an educational point of view of encouraging the stranger to come within our gates, because the discussion of this point of view might bring me perilously near the border of politics, which can-not be entered upon in the proceedings of this Society.
7 —Salmon Fisheries in Ireland and the Report of the Irish Inland Fisheries Commission.
By H. D. COMER, Esq., K.C.
[Read Friday, 17th May, 1901.]
be-64 Salmon Fisheries in Ireland. [Part 81,
1901.] By H V. Conner, Esq., K.C. 67 its rights are most nearly analogous to a common, and each riparian proprietor can take his commonage only within the limits of his own land, yet the public have the right of com-monage at one end." This end being the all important one of the estuary. A free and uninterrupted passage is the first and great essential for salmon, and, without it, there can be no abundance either m tideway or upper waters.
The next jiieat essential is the protection of the breeding fish in the upper waters during the close time. The nature of the salmon is to seek for the purpose of spawning the gravel beds on the upper portions of the river; in fact, as far up as the depth of the streams will allow it to go. It is obvious that, when dis-persed over large areas of shallow waters, enormous damage can easily be done by the destruction of the breeding fish. In order that the stock may be kept up, effective protection is absolutely necessary, and it cannot be too strongly put forward that, to ensure effective, or any protection, in the spawning season, the co-operation of the parties interested in the upper reaches of the river is absolutely necessary, and that such co-operation can only be obtained, if during the open season some reasonable share of fish is allowed to attain to the upper waters, and become the subject of angling. If, as has been known to be the case, owing to weirs or excessive or illegal netting in the estuary, the only fish allowed to attain the upper waters are those which run up the river in the autumn when full of spawn and valueless for angling purposes, it is perfectly obvious that the upper proprietors cannot be expected to take the least interest in ihe preservation of fish, the produce of wrhich is never allowed to return up the
1901.] By H, 11 Conner, Esq., K.C. 69 As time went on, however, as always happens with Acts of Parliament, the enforcement of which is le±t to the energy of individuals, or to local bodies, like Boards of Conservators, formed of discordant elements, and sadly lacking in funds, weak points in the armour of the fishery laws were discovered, and made the most of; and in recent years, though, as is always the case with fisheries, there have been ups and downs—the in-land fisheries have been undoubtedly on the down grade. The necessity of arresting this decline at the earliest possible moment will become more apparent when it is stated how the funds available for the enforcement of the fishery laws are pro-vided. Up to the time of the establishment of the Department of Agriculture, the State really did nothing, except supply the salary, of the Inspectors of Fisheries, and the only available funds for protection were the licence duties received by the Boards of Conservators, which funds increase if the fishing is good, but rapidly decrease when it is bad, so that the more necessity there is for funds the less money there is available. If there are a succession of bad years the licences taken out de-crease, bailiffs have to be taken off, and prosecutions cannot be instituted, so matters rapidly go from bad to worse.
70 Salmon Fisheries in Ireland. [Part 81,
and after hearing an immense body of evidence from all parts of
Ireland, the Commission presented to the Lord Lieutenant a
most able and practical report. The recommendations
con-tained in this Report, which would appear to be of an extremely
moderate character, would, if carried out, go very far indeed
to-wards restoring the salmon fisheries of Ireland to something like
the condition in which every true friend of Ireland would wish
to see them.
I shall now endeavour to summarize the findings of the
Com-mission, and passing by a number of minor alterations and
technical amendments in the existing statutes, the necessity for
which is not seriously disputed, and which need not be noticed
at length, the recommendations made in the Report, may be
classed under those relating to—.
(1) The free passage of fish.
(2) The protection and enforcement of the law.
. (3) The establishment of fish hatcheries.
(4) Scientific investigation.
1901.] By H. D. Conner, Esq., E.C. 71 relative to this are general and of such a vague character that breaches of them can rarely be made the subject of prosecution, and to meet this the Report recommends that wherever practic-able the space to be left for the passage of salmon during the shooting of the net should be denned, and that the Fishery Authority should have full powers to regulate the length of nets to be used in any particular place, and also the manner of their use so as to prevent overlapping. There may be difficulty in some places in carrying out the recommendation as to denning the space within which nets are to be used, but I believe that there can be no question that the Fishery Authority should have the amplest powers of prohibiting in narrow channels the use of nets of such a length that they can only be usefully employed by being shot practically from bank to bank. Dealing with the subject of netting in fresh /watery a procedure which does not commend itself to sportsmen, and fiom the point of view of the general public benefit is certainly not to be encouraged, the Report very truly points out the danger of allowing fresh-water netting to nullify the benefits which arise from the restrictions and regulations laid upon fixed engines in the estuary, and suggests that provision should be made to ensure a clear passage being left for fish, the extension of the weekly close time for nets in fresh waters to sixty hours, and that henceforth repaiian owners should not bo allowed, without the written licence of the Fishery iiuthority, to begin netting on portion of the river where no netting has been in the habit of taking place. I believe that the injury done by netting in fresh water is out of all proportion to the number of salmon taken, and that the restrictions proposed in the Report are in the highest degree moderate. The recommendations of the Commission in relation to the Queen's Gap (or should it be called the King's Gap?) in fishing weirs, and as to fish-passes in mill-dams, are of considerable importance At present, although the Acts of Parlia-ment lay down in the strongest terms that in everjr fishing weir
72 Salmon Fisheries in Ireland. [Part 81,
in mill-dams, under the Fishing .Act of 1842 every dam
con-structed since 1842 was found to have a fish-pass, but by some
strange oversight in the drafting of the Act no summary remedy
was provided for breach of its provisions in that respect, with the
natural result that they were often not observed. The Report
recommends that this oversight should be rectified, and that the
fish-passes should be subject to inspection in the same way as free gaps.
I now come to the second head in my summary of the
recommenda-tions, namely :—Production and the enforcement of the law. This
is a subject in respect of which it is difficult to speak with patience
of the action of the Irish Executive Government in recent
years. The Fishery Acts are Public Acts passed for the benefit
of the public and the country generally, and having only in a
minor degree the effect of giving or preserving private right, and
in the original Fishery Act of 1842, and in several-subsequent
Acts, the coast-guard are designated as a body proper to be
employed in enforcing the provisions of the Acts. It is perfectly
idle to try to enforce the law in the estuaries of Ireland without
co-operation on the part of the coast-guard, who are on the spot,
have boats, are supposed to know the coast, and, as is obvious to
the most casual observer, have always one of their number
patrolling outside the station with a telescope. The Acts provide
that a copy of every Fishery By-law should be posted at the
Coast-guard Station, but the authorities apparently forbid them
to do anything whatever effective to assist in its enforcement.
They may, indeed, if they think fit, report to the Conservators
any breach of the fishery laws which forces itself on their
observa-tion j but, further than this, if they choose to do it, they do
nothing. What the view taken by the Admiralty is cannot
1901.] By E. D. Conner, Esq., E.G. 73 of nobody, and it is for the public interest that the breed should not be destroyed. The Commission is most emphatic in its con-demnation of the short-sighted policy of preventing the police from enforcing a most important branch of the law, and are strongly of opinion that the public interest requires that it should be made part of the duty of the Constabulary to assist in the pro-tection of fish during the close season. Under the head of '' Protection " come also some suggestions of the Commission as to amendments of the law with a view to making the present law more effective as regards poisoning rivers with lime and spurge and flax and factory pollution. In order to meet the breaches and evasions of the law at present taking place during the close season, and the sale of fish illegally caught during such season—which practices are rendered more frequent by the fact that the close season varies in each district, and that, therefore, there is during most of the year some locality in which the fish may have been legally caught—the Report suggests the adoption of an ingenious plan, which has worked witlr the greatest success in England and Scotland, by which persons consigning salmon for sale are bound to enclose with the fish a certificate showing when, where, and how the tish was captured, and the name and address of the sender. This certificate has to be signed in pre-sence of a witness, and, if false, cn,n generally easily be proved to be so, while it affords protection to the bona fide consigner from having his fish seized on suspicion.
The subject of " Fish Hatcheries " is such an important one, and has been dealt with so exhaustively by several writers— notably, Mr. JVloreton Frewen—that I shall only refer briefly to the recommendations of the Commission on the subject. I t is con tended by the advocates offish hatcheries that afar larger propor-tion of the ova are hatched and survive under the treatment of arti-ficial hatchery than when deposited by the salmon in the natural state, and open to many accidents and to the attacks of a multitude of enemies. That hatcheries have been a success in America and Germany cannot in the face of the official reports of the American authorities be disputed for a moment, but the Commission were evidently desirous to prevent the success of hatcheries being used as an argument for permitting the protection of the natural spawning grounds to be neglected, and deprecate strongly any suggestion of the kind. The Report fully recognizes the beneficial effect of fish hatcheries, and recommends that they should be encouraged in every way, and that a central hatchery in each province in Ireland should be established out of funds to be provided by the Fishery Authority. With respect to scientific investigation into matters relating to the salmon fisheries, the Report observes on the fact that up to the present any funds - forthcoming for the purpose have been largely contributed by the